


Let the Colours Bleed (It Means They’re Alive)

by astromancer



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age II, Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Established Relationship, F/M, Implied Sexual Content, Introspection, Loneliness, hawke goes to weisshaupt, varric doesn't
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-06
Updated: 2016-03-06
Packaged: 2018-05-25 00:18:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,506
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6172462
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/astromancer/pseuds/astromancer
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>She feels like home. Warm and safe, untroubled by darkness. She paints life and breathes it. Lights have flickered and died, but she still burns on. Strong. Stable. Sincere. She is your heavy heart. And you are hers.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Let the Colours Bleed (It Means They’re Alive)

A sigh slipped from Varric’s lips as he entered his quarters, eager to rest after the long trip and eternally thankful for his dwarven-blessed inability to dream, for he knew that they would be of nothing else but her. He had hated losing her the first time, with her need to run and hide from anyone and everyone that was after Kirkwall’s Champion. He had done his best to protect her then, and he would do it a million times over if it meant her safety.

The second time— _this time_ —was worse, because even though he still knows where is, she is no longer his main priority (as much as he would insist otherwise) and for that he cannot guarantee either her safety or her life. He is physically bound to the Inquisition, now. But his heart, once lingering somewhere in the Free Marches, now lingers in Weisshaupt—or at least through her journey there, however far along it she may be.

Plus their goodbye— _this time_ —was absolutely terrible. He would definitely need to spice it up a bit when telling _that_ story. More desperate kissing against a wall and proclamations of love so loud Josephine had to peer out from her office to get a glimpse of the commotion, and less sad-smiling Hawkes and teary-eyed dwarves and stepping around each other like it physically pained them to be in the same vicinity together. It was very unbecoming.

Varric was just about to plop down on his bed and try to shoot for maybe an hour or two more than the already little amount of sleep he had been getting, when something sitting innocently on the sheets had caught his eye.

A book?

But not one of his. This cover was as unrecognizable as it was, well, more or less non-existent. Someone had laid an old, worn-out book to sleep right in the middle of his bed.

Surely there were better ways of giving such a book a proper funeral.

Varric pried off his gloves, the sweat from long-sustained bouts of handling Bianca during their trip back to Skyhold making the leather clingy and uncomfortable. He brushed his bruised and aching hands off on his duster before picking up the book for closer inspection.

Varric thumbed the thick cover of the book as he turned it over, terribly worn from years upon years of use. It was covered in enough ink and paint to make it nearly impossible to distinguish the original colour of the leather from the crackled rainbow spatters that had long since smothered it.

It was then that he realized no one else but Hawke would own something as artfully composed as this. The book, gripped firmly in Varric’s careful fingers as if he were afraid it would vanish into thin air or explode into a fine dust purely out of old age, was the very artbook she had owned back in the times where she'd never even _heard_ of the word 'Blight'.

He could feel her in it. See her hands, small yet strong, a perfect fit in his own larger ones, holding it just as carefully as he did now. She had kept it close at hand for as long as he’d known her.

So... why leave it here?

Looking the book over, it was not at all difficult for Varric to remember Hawke with paintbrush in hand, lips quirked up into the smile she saved only for her most artful inspirations (and, more recently, for looking at him, but only when she thought he wasn’t watching), for he had walked in on her in such a state many times before. These were moments when she had been so enraptured in her own thoughts and processes that she had not been aware of his presence in the doorway at all, only hurriedly dropping her brush into a mug when he finally made a sound to let her know she had company.

In those small moments, he enjoyed watching her more than he would have liked to admit. But standing there jaw-dropped and staring seemed both awkward and downright creepy. And although she welcomed him warmly in each and every time, her smile subtly changing from thoughtful to cheeky, he couldn’t help but feel as if he had just barged in on something private—perhaps even intimate, in the way her long, dark hair moved perfectly with the curve of her waist as she applied soft, arching strokes onto the paper, and in the way her lower lip caught between her teeth as she worked, focused and at peace. 

(Maker knows a sliver of peace was hard to come by for Hawke. Luckily, some gracious bastard was busy paying off thugs so that Hawke could have a little peace and quiet. Of course, a certain dwarf would never admit to doing such a thing. He'd probably get a fist to the shoulder, and a bruised humerus meant a lot less crossbow action.)

Whether holding a paintbrush or her staff, Hawke's actions were nearly identical, but in the comfort of her study she just seemed so much softer. Perhaps it was the dim, crackling firelight that warmed the small of her back, or how gentle and graceful she looked out of her armour, into her house robes? Just how much softer would she look… without?

Or perhaps he was just reading too into things. It happened sometimes.

Or, all the time. With Hawke, at least. It was a rather nasty habit.

Besides, he already knew the answer to that. It was written on his tongue, his fingers, his lips; the story only they would ever know.

Varric opened the book to its very first page, careful of its aging binding. But instead of the image he was expecting—an older man, he recalled. The one with her eyes. Or, perhaps it was she who bore his?—he was met instead with words upon a small tear of paper that was a vastly different hue than the paper beneath it. A note, written in a very familiar hand, had been tucked over the page, obscuring whatever artwork lay underneath.

> Varric, 
> 
> I know it will be safer in your hands than mine. Take care of it. And please, take care of yourself, too. We can’t have our trusty dwarf getting himself into ~~more~~ trouble.
> 
> I love you.
> 
> -H

The crinkled edge of a smile, as worn and fragile as the parchment between his fingers, tugged at the corners of his lips as he read and reread the note. Short, sweet, and so very her. He brushed the bare pad of his thumb slowly over the last three words, savouring the feeling of her script in ink, raised atop the parchment like a temple upon a mountain’s peak, awaiting his reverence.

And oh, how he revered it. Every last, delicate stroke. She could write absolute gibberish and make it look like gold.

Perched upon the sill in Varric’s quarters, the silhouette of a spirit faded into view. Cole looked even more otherworldly than usual, framed by the billowing snowy mountains and sheets of stars behind him. He dropped down without so much as a sound, looking tentative, as if unsure how his intrusion would be received. It was common for the boy to appear and disappear as he pleased, and so Varric tolerated it silently, willing to grasp for whatever company he could get.

For all the people it held, Skyhold was unbearably lonely.

Or maybe he just wanted to be alone.

No. He wanted to be with her. Her, and everyone else he had been forced to leave behind. Ten years had not been nearly long enough.

The one thing that miffed him now was not knowing how long Cole had been there, watching him, as he stared at a cold, filthy and tattered old book for what seemed like ages. Varric did not look up as Cole began to speak, his voice flowing in a soft and distant murmur.

“She feels like home. Warm and safe, untroubled by darkness. She paints life and breathes it. Lights have flickered and died, but she still burns on. Strong. Stable. Sincere. She is your heavy heart. And you are hers.”

“Must you do that?” Varric said lowly, growling, the words scratching deep in his throat. But as he looked up, and saw brows curving upward between slick strands of too-long blond hair and the uncertain quivering of the boy’s chin, Varric rubbed a palm over his own stubbled face, realizing that his tired words had come out rougher than he'd intended. Unlike before, the smile Varric managed to form was among the more difficult ones, and for once he realized that he could not sincerely hold it in place for long. And so he reached a heavy hand out, tousled Cole’s hair, and hoped it was enough.

“Just… try not to misplace this one, alright?” Varric patted the book’s hard cover, gazing upon it with tired eyes. “She’d never let me live that one down.”


End file.
